Abstract

I wish, in this article to take the opportunity to present some of the preliminary results of my preparatory investigations towards a first edition of Richard FitzRalph's Commentary on the Sentences. FitzRalph later became famous (or infamous) because of his criticism of the incursions of the religious orders into what he regarded as the proper preserve of the secular clergy. Much of the attention of scholars has concentrated upon the figure of Armachanus contra omnes, and little has been devoted to his university career. The work of G. Leff was rather negative regarding his originality as a lecturer; he depicted our
'Ybernicus' as a traditionalist, as someone who ignored or was unaware of new ideas. In
fact, the truth is rather different: FitzRalph was an extremely successful and influential lecturer. A close reading of his Commentary on the Sentences shows him not only to be one most representative of the Oxford tradition of the late 1320s but also to be one of its
foremost protagonists. For this reason, my concern here will be with his earlier
'scholastic' work and, in particular, with the philosophical themes which he developed in the course of the surviving records of his teaching as a lecturer in Oxford.